Looking below at Burren

Quickly running out of water, not only for their livestock but also for their households, the four farming families joined forces to have a bore installed.

The group took advantage of the government's drought relief funding, available for infrastructure projects including groundwater drilling.

The 617-metre deep bore taps into the Great Artesian Basin on Ron and Anne McMahon's Burren Junction property, "Mehaul".

"Our water supply was critical - our other neighbours were in dire straights as well," Mrs McMahon said.

"We only had dams before the bore and they were dry."

"We did have quite a nice fall (of rain) in about February/March of 86 millimetres but the dams can't go from almost empty to overflowing with only 86mm."

"Mehaul" is a second property for the McMahons, who primarily live at Cryon, 130 kilometres west of Narrabri, which made daily checking of dam water levels time consuming.

"We usually run 400 cows on that place but we had to really destock because of the water issue."

Now with a reliable water resource for the property, Mrs McMahon said a number of tank and trough units would be installed across the paddocks at "Mehaul".

"It's something we have always wanted to do on the property but now we have the water to be able to fill them."